


Stricture

by eloquated



Series: Anatomy [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-The Final Problem, possible tissue warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 11:26:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16474664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eloquated/pseuds/eloquated
Summary: Stricture (n.):an abnormal narrowing of a canal or duct in the body.Mycroft was gone, and Sherlock wasn’t missing him because he was too busy trying not to drown.(follows the events ofFascia)





	Stricture

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween my lovelies! (Or happy whatever day it is when you're reading this!) 
> 
> I know I promised to do something a little happier with the boys this time (they deserve it, I know they do!) but clearly that wasn't meant to be! 
> 
> This one-shot follows 'Fascia', and while it's not strictly required to understand, this will make a lot more sense if you've read that one first.

Mycroft was gone, and Sherlock wasn’t missing him because he was too busy trying not to drown.  

He didn’t know what to do with this feeling, this  _ Oh please God it hurts _ , that seemed to radiate all through his body.  It was crushing the breath out of his chest, and Sherlock Holmes most certainly didn’t believe in God, so there was no comfort coming from that quarter.  

It wasn’t grief, it couldn’t be, because he was furious with his brother for abandoning him.  He was supposed to be the smart one, and he should have been able to outwit their own sister. But no, he had simply given up and left Sherlock here to pick up the pieces and he wished Mycroft were here so he could yell at him.

It wasn’t grief, because that was just an emotion, a feeling; this was a physical thing that made the light hurt, and his body ache, and it was worse than the withdrawal had ever been because at least then he’d had a raging fever to make everything a little blessedly fuzzy at times.

He hadn’t even bothered to answer the door when John had come knocking.. An hour ago?  Two? Maybe it was yesterday, but Sherlock was measuring time in cigarettes, and he had let his phone die so he didn’t have to hear it ringing anymore. It was the most hateful sound in the world, vibrating and stinging inside his head, and his mother had the most insistent ring in the world.  He wasn’t sure how it was even possible, it should be the same sound as everyone else.

But somehow, she managed it.  He always knew when she was calling.

She was probably angry, too.  Maybe that Mycroft had gone and left them all.  Or that her precious little girl had turned out to be a monster in a white cell, and Mycroft had kept her locked up there until the monster had eaten him, too.

Sherlock was angry, and it wasn’t fair because his brother should  _ be here _ .  He should be walking in the door to tell him not to mope, and that he was wasting his life like this.  It wasn’t healthy to stay curled up on the floor-- and why was he on the floor, instead of his perfectly comfortable bed?

Only his bed was just a bare mattress, after he’d thrown all the blankets and pillows out into the hallway; fractious and furious at the sight of them.  They clung onto the scent of Mycroft’s cologne, and it was cedar and grapefruit and the smell had hooked behind Sherlock’s ribs until he was fumbling, stumbling towards the bathroom to wretch.

Mycroft had abandoned him, and Sherlock had never been so angry in all his life.  Not even when he’d send him to rehab; and that had proved a spectacular failure. Sherlock had talked his own psychiatrist into bringing him just one little hit.  There had been something deliciously vulgar about using the hospital’s clean, sterile syringes…

He needed it now.  Knew the way the cocaine would hit his bloodstream and take away all the pain.  He would fly, heart racing behind his ribs until it battered this pain into submission.  Or the pain would win-- and this wasn’t grief, it wasn’t!-- and Sherlock’s heart would simply stop.  Give up. 

But that would mean getting up, and venturing outside.  Through the rubble that remained of his front room, and out into the city.  He could do it, he told himself… But he just didn’t want to.

There would be no Holmes children, then.  Just the shell of Eurus in her cell, and two shiny new gravestones in the Sussex yard beside their Aunt Seraphina and Uncle Rudyard.  Or maybe Mycroft had already purchased a plot somewhere. Some small rectangle of earth, his 3x8 rectangle of earth, six feet deep and waiting for him.  It was the sort of pretentiously morbid thing his brother would have done, he thought meanly; making sure they couldn’t be together even when they were dead.

It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair,  _ it wasn’t fair _ !

Neither was life, but Sherlock hated that vile reminder, and the way it always sounded like Mycroft’s voice in his head.  He should go out just to spite him. Or he could charge his phone and demand one of his dealers make a house call. They would, for a little extra on top.  Mycroft would be so angry, but Sherlock didn’t care.

His brother’s life had belonged to him, and then the idiot had taken it.

He was falling, and the world was crumbling.  His bedroom smelled of his brother’s cologne, and his flat looked like the inside of his chest, all rubble and sharp edges that he kept cutting himself on.  This was where his brother was supposed to come in.

The hero enters stage left, and tells -- no, that wasn't right. Mycroft wasn’t the hero.  He was the villain with the dark cloak, hiding off stage and pulling the strings. Sherlock had always liked those characters the best; he’d sit as far to the edge of his seat as he could, trying to catch a glimpse of the people behind the side curtains.

But it didn’t matter because he was missing his cue and the show couldn’t go on without him.  It wasn’t right, and the other actors needed him, and Sherlock couldn’t remember his lines without his brother there to say part.  He couldn’t do this on his own, because everyone was watching and waiting for him to burn everything to the ground in a fit of pique. 

Mycroft was supposed to be here to pick him up, and tell him it would be alright.  He was supposed to help him to the couch, and sigh, and have that crease between his brows that Sherlock kept reminding him would lead to wrinkles.  

Of course, now it wouldn’t.  It was such a stupid thing, and yet Sherlock could feel the tears rolling down his face.  They were hateful, wet on his cheeks and he had cried more in the last two… three… four? Days than he had in the last decade combined.  Another thing his brother should be there for!

Bloody Mycroft, always taking the lazy way out!  And now Sherlock had to deal with everyone alone, and he  _ knew _ that wasn’t a skill he possessed.  Nor did he want to! People were shallow and boring, and he had to figure out what this growing, burning pain in his chest was before it consumed him.  

He had to be angry until his brother realized how stupid and wrong he had been, and came back to him.  

Mycroft was good at fixing problems, and as long as he stopped being stubborn and stupid, and just came home  _ now _ , Sherlock thought he could even be generous and forgive him.  But the offer wouldn’t last forever, and Mycroft was swiftly running out of his brother’s good will.  He needed to come back, and make the hurting stop, because Sherlock didn’t know what it was, or how to fix it.

His brother always had the answers. Now Sherlock didn’t know who to ask.

He was supposed to have the answers, and fuss over Sherlock until the little brother pulled him into bed to silence him with exasperated kisses.  Mycroft was supposed to be there to remind Sherlock that, if he wanted to stay the night, they would have to go bloody Knightbridge-- and his lovely, comfortable home that Sherlock despised because it looked like it had been decorated by a fussy interior designer (it had).  

Sometimes he would win, and they’d throw the clutter off Sherlock’s bed, and he could sleep with his head over Mycroft’s heart, and his fingers tracing the fresh bruises he’d planted on his pale, freckled skin. 

A reminder that he belonged to Sherlock.  His property. His brother. Lover… Other half of his being that was now missing.

The hallway floor was cold under his cheek, and Sherlock barely noticed when the front door swung slowly open.  “Nothing to see here, move along.. Move along.” He wasn’t sure the intruder had even heard him, and he couldn’t be bothered to check for himself.  Sherlock was waiting. 

Mycroft always said he couldn’t be patient to save his life.  Well, now he was going to prove him wrong. And he would have to admit that he’d been wrong, and--

“Sherlock..”

Oh.

Sherlock couldn’t remember the last time his father had hugged him.  But he sank down on the floor, in the dust and the debris, and there were tears at the corners of his eyes when he dragged his little boy up against his side.  

Someone was crying, Sherlock realized.  He could hear the terrible, violent choke of the sobs, and they made his throat ache.  Crying like their whole body would fall apart, and they were probably shaking.

His father didn’t have the right cologne, and his arms weren’t the same.  But he was here, and he was safe.

And he held his son hard to his chest when the denial broke, and Sherlock realized the one falling apart was him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much in advance to everyone that's reading, subscribing, bookmarking or commenting!
> 
> I love to hear what you're thinking and theorizing, or what else you'd like to see! (I promise, something fluffier.. eventually...)


End file.
